


words burning your skin like acid, let me soothe the ache

by artistsRevival



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Depression, Happy Ending, M/M, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Self-Mutilation, Suicidal Thoughts, self-injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-11
Updated: 2014-10-11
Packaged: 2018-02-20 17:35:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2437106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artistsRevival/pseuds/artistsRevival
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The words the voice says are all true, you think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	words burning your skin like acid, let me soothe the ache

**Author's Note:**

> AhAHAH im so sorry i had an idea and i rolled with it
> 
> edited like three times bc it was written on an iphone

_Worthless._

The word echoes through your mind, wraps itself around your neck and burns in your throat. Its voice is familiar, biting, painful, and - and it has never lied to you. 

_You know it’s true,_ the voice whispers. _You’re worthless, useless, pathetic - attention-seeking asshole. You can’t keep friends for long, and those you have think you’re annoying, obnoxious, irritating, abrasive._ You can’t find a single part of you that can argue.

 _Why do they even put up with you?_ You grit your teeth, fighting back tears and gripping the razor-blade in your hand. It glints at you, as if saying, _you may stop, but you’ll always come back, I’m inescapable, irreversible, wrong, wrong, wrong._ You stare at the pale-to-pink lines on your arm, put there by a glinting, shiny piece of metal and your own hand and your thoughts. The word ’tired’ is carved there.

Your fight with Sollux today. That’s what set this off. You had said something or other, and he snapped at you - and, instead of acting like a civilized human being, you snapped back, and again, and again, until he ended the fight with a "Why are we even friendth?" and when you couldn’t answer, you asked the infamous question.

"Are we still friends?"

"Yeah, sure," he replied, voice soft - from what? Surely he doesn’t care about you, he’ll _never care about you, he’ll never love you, the way you love him, the way you have since the seventh grade when the first marks made their way on your arm -_

Tears cloud your vision as your laptop chimes. It doesn’t even register as you dig the blade into your arm and pull, over and over, watching blood bead in lines and drip down onto the carpet.

You never realized that the notification was from Sollux, asking if you were free. Behind the screen, his face falls when you don’t answer for another fifteen minutes, as he’s just as lovestruck for you as you are for him.

\------

The next day, it’s worse.

It is so, so much worse.

You dash into your house, fumbling with the keys as tears threaten to spill. _You couldn’t hide it forever, you freak._

Of course, of course, of course you couldn’t hide it that well today, of course someone ripped your jacket off as the bell rang, of course your walk home had been tear-streaked and brisk. 

You pull your jacket off, staring at your arms as you stumble across the room to retrieve your blades. _He saw, he think’s you’re disgusting, insane, a freak._

Of course the first person to see and shout your name over the general din of a high school hallway was Sollux.

Thank fuck your dad isn’t home from work. 

Pain stops the pain, you know this is true. As you press the tip of the blade to your arm, you hear two words bouncing throughout your mind.

_End it! End it! End it!_

You know you want to. Your grades are dropping, you hate yourself, people hate you, you’re generally unpleasant-looking at five-seven and twig-thin. Hipbones jut out from skipped lunches. Shoulder-blades sharp from reduced dinners. Ginger hair falls over freakish, red eyes in messy strands. 

Your shoulders shake with sobs as you sit on your bed and push the tip of the blade into your skin, pressing hard and pulling quickly. Blood trickles down your arm, over and over and over, numbing you to the core -

You hear a door slam, and a slightly Texan voice yelling, "KK? Karkat, I thwear to all that ith holy -" 

You freeze. The tears dry as footsteps near your door. You place the blade back where it was and pull your jacket on in a rush, hoping the blood won't seep through.

Your door opens, and in your doorway stands Sollux Captor, in all his six-foot-tall, blond, worried glory. _You forgot to lock the door behind you, you know his bus stop's barely a block away._ His eyes meet yours and he slowly walks toward you, as though you're a frightened animal.

"KK? Hey, KK, are you okay?" His voice is soft and concerned.

"I’m fine," you spit, leaning away from him and pulling your arm in close to you.

"Yeah, no, I know you’re not, don’t try and pull thith bullshit with me." His heterochromatic eyes are crinkled with deep concern, one blue, one brown. Both normal colours.

"The fuck do you care, anyway?" Your eyes threaten to spill tears again, and your voice sounds constricted.

"You dipshit, I do fucking care about you, okay? What the hell would give you the idea that I don't? Give me your arm or tho help me." His eyes harden, and he moves closer, kneeling in front of you and taking your bleeding arm carefully.

You almost jerk away, but then you realize that there’s a patch of blood, it’s all over anyway. You watch in faded horror as he rolls the sleeve back with gentle - shaking? - hands. _They’re shaking because he’s disgusted._

You feel tears rolling down your face again as he runs his fingers lightly down the cuts and gashes, getting blood on his fingers and looking anguished and slightly confused. He sets your arm down slowly, reaching for the other one and looking it up and down.

Eventually he takes your hands and looks you in the eye. Fuck, he looks so sad, so broken, _dammit Karkat, you fucked up, you hurt him -_

"Why?" It’s soft, and genuine, you think. _He wouldn’t understand, how would someone as perfect as he ever feel like this?_

"You - fuck, you wouldn’t get it, you wouldn’t - understand," you choke out.

His face hardens as he lets go of your hands. "I wouldn’t underthtand, would I," he says quietly as he grips the hemline of his sweatshirt, pulling it over his head -

_Oh._

Crisscrossing his torso are scars and cuts and pink lacerations, like someone spread your wrists over a stomach and sides. You stare for a good thirty seconds. _Why would he - how could he - he’s perfect, incredible, amazing, how does he -_

He wraps his arms around your bony shoulders and lets you cry. 

"It’s - it’s that fucking voice, it - the words - worthless, I’m - annoying, obnoxious, I should - jump - jump off a bridge -" you choke out, and he just rocks forward and back, and then takes your face in his hands, and stares you straight in the eye -

Oh. _Oh._

His lips press against yours, moving gently and warmly, and they’re soft, softer than yours. You kiss back, not quite believing what’s happening. He pushes you back lightly, laying you across your bed and breaking contact only to settle over you again, to kiss you again and deeper as you run your hands over his stomach and sides, fingers sliding over the ridges. 

He breaks away againt to stare back at you. "KK," he begins. "Let me tell you thomething. You’re not worthleth, you’re not obnockthiouth, you’re not annoying, and I thwear, if you jump off a bridge, I’ll be right fucking behind you, firtht of all becauthe you're like one of the only thingth keeping me alive at the moment, and altho becauthe I love you, tho much, and you’re worth tho much more than thith." You heart seizes with the words "I love you." 

"You’re worth the goddamn world, KK." He kisses you again as tears prick at your eyes once more. You part your lips, allowing him to softly brush the tips of his split tongue around your mouth, and you rest your hands on his hips. 

When you break for breath, you grab him and tug him down to lay next to you, wrapping your arms around him as he engulfs you.

"Thothe wordth mean nothing, KK. Nothing." He pets your hair. "Now, we’re going to thtop. Together, okay? We’ll both throw the bladeth over a bridge or thomething appropriately dramatic. Promithe me. We’ve thtill got liveth to live."

You shiver and nod your head against his chest, whispering "I promise."

As he holds you while you cry, you think maybe you have a little bit of hope that you haven’t had for a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> sorryr sorry
> 
> pls note that all ur comments & kudos & shit are what keeps me writing
> 
> feel free to comment like seriously ill never yell at u chances are ill probably grin like a dumbass


End file.
